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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23407324">ill with want</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/floweryfran/pseuds/floweryfran'>floweryfran</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>'til the end of the line, baby [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Domestic Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Established Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Gay Bucky Barnes, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers-centric, M/M, New York Steve Rogers, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-War Bucky Barnes, Pre-World War II Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Protective Bucky Barnes, Protective Steve Rogers, Sick Bucky Barnes, Sick Steve Rogers, Sickfic, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Stucky - Freeform, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, pre-war Steve Rogers, stevebucky - Freeform, stevexbucky - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:27:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,471</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23407324</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/floweryfran/pseuds/floweryfran</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Mm. Sweet,” Steve mumbles. </p><p>“That’s me,” Bucky says. “I’m so sweet that I’m about to go get you a bowl of soup, which I brought you, and I’m gonna sit right here until you finish it. Then you’re gonna sleep, and I’m gonna sit right here and watch because my awareness is the only thing to keep you from croaking, ever. And I’m not gonna move from this spot until your ma claps my ears. Because the second you can— fill your damn lungs properly, the second your fever is down, I’m—” Bucky cuts off. He can sweet talk any girl in all of Brooklyn, but this is Steve. </p><p>“What are you gonnda do, Buck?” Steve says. </p><p>“I’m gonna kiss you so g-ddamn stupid that you won’t be able to talk right for a week,” Bucky says.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>'til the end of the line, baby [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1371430</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>199</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>ill with want</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>tw for steve being congested in the first half of this so all his dialogue sounds like he got punched in the teeth </p><p>this lives in an ambiguous timeline, this is a liminal space</p><p>oh also title from song by the avett brothers w the same name. begging u to listen to it, and every song they've ever written. they're so underrated and brilliant. my top artist of last decade and i only discovered their shit in 2019.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Hey, Stevie,” Bucky calls, shouldering the door to the Rogers’s apartment open. It creaks the same as it always has, thuds against the wall behind it as Bucky toes his boots off. He’s got a pot of matzo ball soup in hand and a hat hanging half-off his head, dangling in his eyes, flattening the fringe he had so carefully Brylcreemed away from his forehead. </p><p> </p><p>He wrinkles his nose. The air in the Rogers’s place is almost always stale on account of the ancient furnace spitting out lungfuls of dust and their reluctance to open the windows what with everything and anything that floats in the air giving Steve the croup. Smells like boiled potatoes and candle wax today. Not Bucky’s favorite scent combination, he must admit. </p><p> </p><p>Bucky plops the pot beside the stove, removes the burner cover, and leaves it on the kitchen table— a thick slab of wood smoothed out on top but raw around the edges, with legs that seem to have come from four different chairs hammered crookedly into the underside of the wood. It’s a damn good table. </p><p> </p><p>Bucky lights up the stove- the pride and joy of the apartment- and sets the soup pot over the flame. Sarah and Steve- and Bucky, now that he’s of age and skipping school half the days of the week to work, though Steve would kill him dead with his fists of fury if he knew Bucky’d helped- had saved up for a full year to afford the rickety thing the winter after Steve was leveled for two months with pneumonia and bronchitis and the stomach flu all at once. That was a bad winter. The worst they’ve had. The way Steve couldn’t breathe was terrifying, it was fucking terrifying, and still Steve can’t stand up without knocking right back down, dizzy and euphoric and a little blind. Sarah told Bucky it’s <em> hypoxic hypoxia </em> to which Bucky said <em> that’s a stupid name </em> to which Sarah clapped his ears, but Bucky clings to the name, really, because when he can say it, when he can call it, when he can curse it, it’s less scary. </p><p> </p><p>Hypoxic fucking hypoxia, that slimy sonuvabitch. </p><p> </p><p>It colors Steve’s fingers and toes purple at the tips and makes them tingle like they’ve been holding an icy malt shake for too long. Bucky is pretty sure, too, that it’s the reason Steve can’t catch a baseball anymore, the reason he’s too slow to move. He also thinks it’s the reason Steve is such a g-ddamn idiot. It must screw with his judgement, it must, because Steve is even more reckless now than he was as a fat-fingered, cabbage-smelling kid. Hypoxic <em> motherfucking </em> hypoxia made him catch scarlet fever in the streets after going to Coney Island without a jacket in October, lingering too long in the chill of the sea and hopping along the jetties like a little seagull, all unfettered yawp and narrow bones and white sweater shining in the sharp sun like a feathered coat. His left ear has been for bupkis since then.</p><p> </p><p>Jesus. Steve is a fucking mook. And here Bucky is, warming soup for him. </p><p> </p><p>What does that make Bucky? </p><p> </p><p>Patroclus, probably. </p><p> </p><p>Bucky gives the soup, now simmering, a single stir, then props the lid on the lip of the pot. He washes his hands quickly, pats them dry on the front of his pants, and hurries towards Steve’s room. </p><p> </p><p>Bucky swings himself into the doorway, crossing his arms and his ankles and leaning against the frame. </p><p> </p><p>Steve yelps upon seeing him, and Bucky loves him.</p><p> </p><p>Bucky shoots him an ear-to-ear grin. “Morning, Steven,” he says.</p><p> </p><p>“Where did you comb fromb, asshole?” Steve says, a hand massaging his chest.</p><p> </p><p>“The loins of gee-oh-dee himself,” Bucky says. His eyes catch on Steve’s sallow skin, the pinched look at the corners of his eyes, the tip of his nose raw and red from blowing. Bucky can count three sweaters on him, the bottom two of greyish cotton, a barrier between his back and the top layer of brownish wool because wool makes Steve’s skin itch something fierce. </p><p> </p><p>Steve’s hand pokes waveringly from the edge of the sheets, flips Bucky the bird, then slips back under. “Didn’ hear you comb ind,” he says.</p><p> </p><p>“Probably ‘cuz you’re stoppered up like a bottle of wine gone sour in fourteen-ninety-two,” says Bucky, and he finally comes through the doorway. He grabs the short wooden chair from Steve’s desk and drags it to his bedside before falling smoothly into it. He crosses his ankle over his knee and sighs, mourning that the chair is worn in the shape of his own ass rather than Steve’s for how often he’s sat in this very spot, watching the rise and fall of Steve’s unreliable chest. The thought barely finishes before Bucky rebukes himself for it. It’s an awful lot better to sit sentinel than to sit shiva, after all. </p><p> </p><p>“I’mb find,” says Steve. </p><p> </p><p>“No, you’re not,” Bucky says. He presses the back of his hand to Steve’s forehead and winces at the heat. “Ho-lee,” he mumbles, “are you hallucinating yet? Tripping the light fantastic with Ginger in your fever dreams?”</p><p> </p><p>Steve squints a little, the way he does when he’s trying to read lips, and Bucky feels his chest go tight. He leans backwards, crossing his arms, pressing his socked heels into the floorboards. “You can’t hear me at all, can you?” Bucky says. “When I’m talking quiet, ‘cuz I’m a fuckin’ gentleman, you can’t hear it?” </p><p> </p><p>“Meh,” Steve says, his eyes caught on Bucky’s mouth. </p><p> </p><p>“What about now?” Bucky whispers, because he loves the way Steve’s face goes red when he pushes his buttons. </p><p> </p><p>“Quit, asshole,” says Steve. “Teasi’g mbe for havin’ a bonafide disability, real ndice.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not teasing,” Bucky mouths silently, eyes wide in false earnestness. Steve’s mouth is set in a little line and Bucky wants to run his thumbs over it, soften it, and then press his lips apart with his own. He can almost imagine the taste: strange, sour smoke from his asthma cigarettes, a bit of sweat from his upper lip, and a bit of cinnamon from his morning toast. </p><p> </p><p>“Come on, schmuck,” Bucky says, more loudly now, listing forward to nudge him in the ribs, clearing his throat to rid it of the sudden thickness sticking it shut, “c’mon. Let me help ya. Why do you think I’m here, anyway, if not to be your nurse, slaving my hands chapped at your wretched bedside?”</p><p> </p><p>“‘Cuz you’re sweet onb mby ma,” Steve says. </p><p> </p><p>Bucky grabs a kerchief from the nightstand and holds it to Steve’s nose. “Blow,” he says, then, “oy vey is mir. You’re absolutely fucking disgusting,” when Steve does, thick and emphatic like a bugler playing <em> First Call</em>. Then, quieter, when he assumes enough mucus has drained to let Steve hear him through his good ear, at least, “I ain’t sweet on your ma, numbnuts. That would be gross.”</p><p> </p><p>“Would explaind why you’re always here, though,” Steve says. </p><p> </p><p>Bucky blinks, lets that smack him eight ways to the weekend, then says, “maybe I’m here for you. Didja’ think of that?” a little hotly, a little embarrassedly. “Is it so bothersome, me hanging around with you?”</p><p> </p><p>“Ndo,” says Steve petulantly. “Just figure you’ve got better shit to do.” </p><p> </p><p>“Well, I’ve finished all my laundry. Darned my socks, said my morning prayers, had some toast and coffee,” Bucky ticks off. “I braided Becca’s hair for school. Brought you a pot of Ma’s best matzo ball, too; she sends you her best, by the way.” Bucky scratches an eyebrow. “Yeah, nope, looks like I’ve got exactly nothing better to do than be here.” </p><p> </p><p>“You should go to school,” Steve says with that contrived solemnity he adopts when what he really means is that Bucky should do just the opposite but wants to be unincriminable later, when Bucky undoubtedly does the thing, because Stupid over here under the blankets is so far up Bucky’s ass that he can feel him tickling his tonsils. </p><p> </p><p>“What kinda’ brainless question is that? What good am I supposed to get outta’ school when you’re not there to nag me about paying attention in Algebra?” Bucky says. “Of course I’m not going. Not without you, Stevie.”</p><p> </p><p>Steve scowls at him. Bucky thinks it would be a smile on any other pair of lips, but he’s just as sure that a thousand smiles from a thousand brilliant dames couldn’t do the same thing to his heart that one of Steve’s scowls does. </p><p> </p><p>Steve tips forward and drops his forehead into the dip of Bucky’s shoulder. </p><p> </p><p>Bucky freezes, and Steve presses even harder against him, insistent, a puff of hot breath sloughing from between his lips. </p><p> </p><p>Bucky’s arms rise, and he scoots his chair closer so he can wrap around Steve properly, his hands around Steve’s little waist before slipping upwards, a palm on either side of Steve’s ribs, rubbing along the staggered steps of them like they are carved of marble, dipped in gold. Steve’s warmth is right there, propped against Bucky’s, and Bucky wants to sink into it like flowers into sunshine, like ripped newspaper pages melting to bits on the surface of the East River. </p><p> </p><p>“What are you thindking?” Steve says. His voice is quiet, like he’s afraid to disturb the dust motes glimmering in the morning light around them like embers suspended in time. </p><p> </p><p>“Hmm,” Bucky says. “Nothing.” </p><p> </p><p>“Liar.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, it's a secret, then.”</p><p> </p><p>“Secret fromb mbe?”</p><p> </p><p>“Secret from you.”</p><p> </p><p>“You wond’t tell mbe?”</p><p> </p><p>“I won’t tell you.”</p><p> </p><p>“He wond’t tell mbe,” Steve mumbles pensively, as if harrumphing of Bucky’s stubbornness to a pal. Bucky feels a moment of pure, ferocious pleasure at the thought of his name on Steve’s lips without him there to catch it. “I’ll just guess, thend.” He sniffles, and Bucky's shirt rustles. One of Steve’s fingers hooks around one of his suspenders and tugs on it as he thinks. “Thindkin’ of pundchindg Billy Byrne?”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m always thinking of punching Billy Byrne. What a piece of shit.” Byrne lives across the street from Steve and frequently attempts to knock his nose in as recompense for existing, or something.</p><p> </p><p>“Mby mba’s colcanndon.”</p><p> </p><p>“Stevie, I love your ma, but I could go without having her colcannon ever again and be cheesed. Just potatoes and cabbage, how does she mess that up? Should be impossible.”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m tellin’ her you said that.” </p><p> </p><p>“You wouldn’t dare.”</p><p> </p><p>“Mm.” Bucky can hear Steve’s gears a-turning. He’s scheming; even without seeing his face, Bucky knows he is. “Thindkin’ ‘bout mbe?”</p><p> </p><p>“You?” says Bucky, his heart swooping. “Never,” his mouth says. <em> Every second </em> says his brain. <em> A second ain’t worth filling if it ain’t got you in it somehow, some way. </em></p><p> </p><p>“Hmm,” says Steve. “What would I have to do to mbake you thindk about mbe?”</p><p> </p><p>Bucky startles just slightly. “Um,” he says. Then he hesitates, because his limbs are locked in molasses and he can strain against the sugar of it all he wants, but he’ll harden there, crystallized like mosquitoes in amber, no matter how hard he tries.</p><p> </p><p>Steve sighs, a heavy one that whistles in his chest. “Ndever mind.”</p><p> </p><p>Bucky pulls away enough to meet Steve’s eyes. Glazed with fever, but storming. Full of angry intention, always, this wily sonuva’. “No, no you don’t get to take it back, what kinda’ coward—?”</p><p> </p><p>Steve’s hand, long and cold and rough with pencil calluses, smattered with reddish freckles, finds its way onto Bucky’s cheek, spidery and lithe. The sentence melts from Bucky’s tongue. His brain is filled with the crackle of fire in the stove, the rush of a boat carving through the Navy Yard Basin, there are no— words. White noise and a panicked bit of static electricity.</p><p> </p><p>Steve is staring at him hard. He’s always so hard, so rough, unsanded edges and unsparked flint, full of potential. Every breath washes over Bucky’s lips. He’s going to faint, right here, in Steve’s hand, like clay grown too warm, Pygmalion, now, he has no substance except for what Steve made him.</p><p> </p><p>Right as Bucky becomes sure Steve is going to press their lips together, Steve’s thumb slips around Bucky’s chin to the opposite side of his jaw and he smooshes Bucky’s cheeks forward.</p><p> </p><p>Bucky’s lips go pursed. His eyebrows tumble low, unimpressed. His face burns hot.</p><p> </p><p>Steve’s smile is brilliant, his cheeks pink as his nose. “It’s like that?” he says.</p><p> </p><p>“Like wot,” Bucky says around Steve’s grip.</p><p> </p><p>Steve just keeps smiling. </p><p> </p><p>“Of course it is,” Bucky says roughly. </p><p> </p><p>“Good,” says Steve. “Good. Gee whiz.” He stops to smile uninhibited another moment, shaking his head. If Bucky saw him smiling like this any other time, he’d think Steve’d had one too many asthma cigarettes and was tripping balls, watching faeries fly around his head or following a trail of will o the wisps down the pier to his waterlogged death. “Now I gotta’ get better quick. Got sombethin’ to look forward to.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh?” says Bucky. His pulse is drowning him right there beside Steve.</p><p> </p><p>“Yup,” says Steve. “Kissin’ ond you the second I wond’t get you sick.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh,” Bucky says dumbly.</p><p> </p><p>“Mhm. Don’ wandt you catching this and givin’ it back to mbe.” Steve releases Bucky’s cheeks from his tight grip, his fingers snaking towards Bucky’s ear, arching so his nails can scritch along the scruff roughening Bucky’s jaw. </p><p> </p><p>“Steve,” Bucky says.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, Buck?”</p><p> </p><p>“Fuck you.”</p><p> </p><p>“Whatever for?”</p><p> </p><p>“Saying that and then making me wait, shit for brains.”</p><p> </p><p>Steve snorts a laugh, then doubles forward into Bucky’s shoulder, coughing.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, boychik,” Bucky says, tucking Steve closer, feeling wild like coattails in the wind off the bay. His hands rub Steve’s spine, from the roughly shorn ends of Steve’s hair to the waistband of his pyjama pants. Holding him is like running his fingers along the top of a field of grass, like riding a wave to shore on his belly, the sand and broken shells roughing him up as he slows to a stop. </p><p> </p><p>“Mm. Sweet,” Steve mumbles. </p><p> </p><p>“That’s me,” Bucky says. “I’m so sweet that I’m about to go get you a bowl of soup, which I brought you, and I’m gonna sit right here until you finish it. Then you’re gonna sleep, and I’m gonna sit right here and watch because my awareness is the only thing to keep you from croaking, ever. And I’m not gonna move from this spot until your ma claps my ears. Because the second you can— fill your damn lungs properly, the second your fever is down, I’m—” Bucky cuts off. He can sweet talk any girl in all of Brooklyn, but this is Steve. </p><p> </p><p>“What are you gonnda do, Buck?” Steve says. </p><p> </p><p>“I’m gonna kiss you so g-ddamn stupid that you won’t be able to talk right for a week,” Bucky says.</p><p> </p><p>Steve chuckles against Bucky’s shoulder. His fingertips are tracing the curve of Bucky’s ear, untucking the back of his shirt and slipping under, against the skin of his back, and Bucky’s face is flushing, and he can’t stop grinning. “I’ll hold you to that,” he says.</p><p> </p><p>Bucky shuts his eyes and basks. </p><p> </p><p>---</p><p> </p><p><em> “Fuuuuck,” </em> Bucky grinds out. “Fucking shit. Holy motherfucking balls.”</p><p> </p><p>“Hm?” Steve grunts, three-quarters asleep. Bucky squints an eye open just to look at the way the light sits on him, like an ochre tarp, turning his hair ginger and his skin delicately pellucid, like cleaning linen cloths from soot spattered across it. </p><p> </p><p>“I feel like. I swallowed Satan’s spunk. And it was pure Cholula.”</p><p> </p><p>Steve wrinkles his nose. “Sorry, Buck.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s all I get? No <em> let me get you. A glass of water. Dollface.” </em>Bucky has not been so stop-and-start in months. It’s not his brain this time. It’s just his fucking sandpaper, raw burn throat. </p><p> </p><p>“S’too early for me to be nice, are you shittin’ me?” Steve grumbles. </p><p> </p><p>“No,” Bucky says.</p><p> </p><p>Bucky’s hair is nest-like, greasy, taking the loose curls he’s never let it fall into, always smothering it flat with a thick layer of pomade. He doesn’t bother with that now. Hardly bothers with anything, anymore, but especially dolling himself up. His popinjay days are behind him. Now he’s more like a raccoon. The garbage can kind. He’s accepted it. He's happy, and that’s all that really matters.</p><p> </p><p>Bucky pushes himself off the edge of the mattress and, with worrying immediacy, finds himself face-first on the hardwood.</p><p> </p><p>“Ow,” he says.</p><p> </p><p>Steve says, “did you hit your head?”</p><p> </p><p>Bucky thinks. “No,” he says.</p><p> </p><p>Steve says, “can you wait five more minutes for my brain to wake up?”</p><p> </p><p>Bucky tries to shove his elbows under his weight, to wedge himself up. That decidedly does not work, so he says, “okay.”</p><p> </p><p>He takes mental notes to vacuum under the bed and dust the floorboards, tracing the pattern of the area rug with his eyes until Steve finally rises with a grunt, slips his hands under Bucky’s sweaty armpits, and wrenches him to his feet.</p><p> </p><p>Bucky wobbles, even supported by Steve.</p><p> </p><p>“Morning,” Bucky says a little drunkenly.</p><p> </p><p>“Morning,” Steve repeats, but now he’s got his <em> I’m Captain America and I’m Alert To My Surroundings </em> face on, and Bucky always gets a little wriggly when he’s subjected to the intensity of that stare. “Are you gonna faint?”</p><p> </p><p>“No,” Bucky says mulishly.</p><p> </p><p>“Didn’t you just drop like a sack of potatoes the second you stood up? Or was that the other enormous metal armed man sleeping in my bed.”</p><p> </p><p>“Dunno,” Bucky says, shrugging as much as he can with Steve’s palms wedged in his actual armpits, “when’d you last. Get your eyes checked.”</p><p> </p><p>Steve bends over just slightly and somehow Bucky is falling head first towards the floor again. He shuts his eyes and resigns himself to it, but then Steve’s shoulder is folding him in half like a newspaper section and his knees are poking Steve’s meaty abdomen and his hands are hanging loose right by Steve’s ass and Bucky exerts immense self-control as to not grab a double handful and knead it like pasta dough.</p><p> </p><p>Steve tosses him onto the bed and Bucky’s brain pings pinball-like in his skull for a long moment before settling. </p><p> </p><p>By the time his vision clears, Steve is sitting on the bed right in front of his bent knees, cross-legged and expectant.</p><p> </p><p>“What,” Bucky says.</p><p> </p><p>“I’ll help now,” says Steve. Fucking golden retriever weirdo. “What do you need?”</p><p> </p><p>“Um,” says Bucky. “Water.” He hasn’t been sick since breaking his coding. He doesn’t really know all that much about how they treat illness in the future. Nor what exactly counts as pain that needs to be fixed. “Maybe a hug.”</p><p> </p><p>Steve softens the way he’s done since the serum gave his personality a mild retouching. Not that Steve <em> changed, </em> not really, just that Captain America didn’t have to fight for everything from bread to a breath and, so, he had a little extra room to be sweet. Steve is sweet now, sweeter than anything. A brick, too. But a sweet one. A sugar cube. A cinder block, but one of those hardened chunks of brown sugar from the bottom of the bag.</p><p> </p><p>Steve stands and pets Bucky’s head once before heading out, assumedly to fetch some water. Bucky uses the free moment to take stock.</p><p> </p><p>He feels like shit. </p><p> </p><p>Definite fever. Sore throat, achy limbs, tightness in the chest. All symptoms of a typical flu. Stupid HYDRA bootlegger serum. Doesn’t even have all the benefits of the normal kind.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m back,” Steve says, stomping his way back into the room, “so you can stop counting the seconds until my return. I know it was highly anticipated because I’m the best thing in your whole damn life. You don’t even need to say it, I just know.” Bucky tries not to wince at the noise because Steve looks so damn chuffed to be able to help, to offer to wait on Bucky hand and foot the way Bucky had done for so damn long.</p><p> </p><p>Bucky offers him the best smile he can muster before taking a wavering, wincing sip. </p><p> </p><p>“Do you know,” Steve starts, and his eyebrows squiggle low on his forehead, “do want to know what I think the worst thing Hydra did to you is?”</p><p> </p><p>Bucky snuffles a breath and says, “no.”</p><p> </p><p>Steve says, “it’s not the brainwashing. It’s not the experiments. It’s not even the long hair.” He climbs back onto the bed and sits beside Bucky, putting them shoulder to shoulder.<br/><br/></p><p>“The arm,” Bucky guesses without luster. </p><p> </p><p>“Nope,” Steve chirps. “They fixed your front tooth that used to be a little twisted and I’ll <em> never </em> fucking forgive them for it.”</p><p> </p><p>Bucky blinks.</p><p> </p><p>“You done with your water?” Steve says, and plucks the glass out of Bucky’s hands as if he’d never changed the subject at all. As soon as he’s back in place, he says, “you ready for the hug part now? Because I am. I got all this wingspan and nothing to— uh, span.”</p><p> </p><p>Bucky’s nose wrinkles as he holds back a laugh. He burrows forward into Steve’s chest to hide it, feeling stupid and shy and weirdly content despite his weak, weak immune system doing unto him this terrible deed. “Oytser,” Bucky mumbles into Steve’s shirt. </p><p> </p><p>Steve lays them down flat, Bucky’s face slipping into the hollow between his throat and his shoulder, his chin in the dip of Steve’s collarbone. He could live here. Right like this, breathing Steve’s smell, forever.</p><p> </p><p>Steve presses his lips onto the crown of Bucky’s head, the kiss long and warm and sweet. Steve’s got that stupid ginger scruff swallowing his chin whole and it scratches Bucky’s scalp as he breathes. Bucky doesn’t mind it as much as he’ll make it seem like he does.</p><p> </p><p>“What do you think you caught?” Steve says, squeezing his fingers over Bucky’s metal bicep.</p><p> </p><p>“Flu,” Bucky says.</p><p> </p><p>“Aw, honey,” says Steve. “That’s fucking disgusting.”</p><p> </p><p>“I know,” Bucky says. He feels it. But he’s also never been less miserable while feeling miserable, so.</p><p> </p><p>“You want to sleep it off?” Steve asks. His chest rumbles while he speaks. His voice has always been too deep, but now at least it looks right, coming out of a monster truck body instead of a unicycle.</p><p> </p><p>Bucky grunts his assent and closes his eyes. Steve’s fingers drag through his hair idly and he drifts, though he doesn’t ever truly sleep. All he knows is that the sun claws its way higher in the sky and their room fills with languid golden light and he gets even warmer, too hot, his head baking and his thoughts slow and sweat slicking up his hairline and probably dampening Steve’s shirt, too, and his whole body feels like Fred Astaire was practicing tap on top of him.</p><p> </p><p>He groans. He feels more miserable now, Steve be damned.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, baby,” Steve says. Okay, maybe Steve isn’t damned. “You awake?”</p><p> </p><p>“Never really slept,” Bucky says. His mouth is all dry again.</p><p> </p><p>“Feel any better?”</p><p> </p><p>“Not at all.”</p><p> </p><p>“Aw, no,” says Steve, and he squirms out from under Bucky just enough to catch his gaze. Steve’s eyes are so big and blue. Bucky wants to kick him right in the teeth, stupid pretty asshole, Jesus fuck.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you,” says Bucky. That hurts his throat, so he stops. Waits until the ache passes. Starts up where he left off. “Have Nee-quill.”</p><p> </p><p>Steve squints. </p><p> </p><p>“Blue bottle,” Bucky says. “Strong enough to put a whale to rest.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh my G-d,” Steve says. Bucky starts to sneeze, over and over, each sneeze a little more preposterous than the last, so Steve talks louder to be heard over the noise. “Nyquil. Yeah, Buck, I’ve got fuckin’ Nyquil. I’ve got super-strength Nyquil from Tony, I’ll bring you some of that.”</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks,” Bucky wheezes.</p><p> </p><p>Steve claps a hand to his cheek twice and then goes, hastening into the hallway to scope through the cramped closet. Bucky loves Steve. Loves him when he’s here, with him. Gets sad when he leaves, but he sure loves to watch him go.</p><p> </p><p>When Steve comes back over, Bucky extends a hand off the bed. </p><p> </p><p>Steve looks at it. </p><p> </p><p>Bucky waves it and says, “come… closer.”</p><p> </p><p>Steve does, one eyebrow quirked. The eyebrow rockets into his hairline and then swan dives back down as Bucky’s hand cups Steve’s nearer ass cheek. </p><p> </p><p>“Mm. Nice,” Bucky says.</p><p> </p><p>“Thanks,” Steve says. “I’d say I grew it myself, but I’d be lying. Made in America, though. Take that, outsourcing.”</p><p> </p><p>Bucky sneezes three times in quick succession, his entire head rattling. “Gimme the snooze juice, Maiden America.”</p><p> </p><p>Steve snorts inelegantly and does as he’s asked, shaking a little plastic measuring cup out of the box along with the bottle. He pours a hefty dose and hands it to Bucky, who takes it down like a shot but winces far more than he’s ever winced from hard alcohol. “The <em> fuck. </em>Is this flavor.”</p><p> </p><p>“Blue raspberry.”</p><p> </p><p>Bucky stares. </p><p> </p><p>“I think it’s good!” Steve says. </p><p> </p><p>“There are no blue raspberries. In nature.”</p><p> </p><p>“Nope.”</p><p> </p><p>“Then what. Does this taste like.”</p><p> </p><p>“Mm, I dunno. Bubblegum, sorta.”</p><p> </p><p>Bucky thinks hard. “Tastes like blue,” is the best he can come up with. </p><p> </p><p>Steve sits on the edge of the mattress and runs a hand through Bucky’s hair, pushing it off his forehead. “Sure does, pal. Funny you don’t like it, seeing as blue’s your favorite color and all.”</p><p> </p><p>A wave of something heavy and warm runs across Bucky and flattens him on the mattress. If he hadn’t been laid loose before, he sure is now. His heartbeat is about half normal speed. His eyelids feel sticky. “Holy shit,” he mumbles. “Did you fatally drug me.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, good, it’s working,” Steve says cheerfully. </p><p> </p><p>“Keep rubbing my hair,” Bucky says. His eyes flutter shut. </p><p> </p><p>“Sir, yessir.” </p><p> </p><p>“I haven’t been this high. Since nineteen-ninety-six.”</p><p> </p><p>“Do I want to ask?”</p><p> </p><p>“No. Yes. You want to ask. You don’t want to know.”</p><p> </p><p>“Ah. Of course. That makes— perfect sense, Buck, thanks.”</p><p> </p><p>“C’mere. Punk.”</p><p> </p><p>Bucky, without opening his eyes, waves his hand through the air until it catches Steve’s and he latches on, grabbing Steve’s elbow with his other hand and wrenching him down onto the bed, flush overtop of Bucky’s own body. A familiar weight and warmth, Steve’s lashes fluttering against his cheekbone and Steve’s big fucking nose smooshing into his neck. </p><p> </p><p>Bucky hums contentedly. He lugs his arms, which feel awfully club-like, around Steve’s back and holds him close. He smells like sweat and sleep and some indescribably <em> Steve </em> something and Bucky loves him so much it aches. </p><p> </p><p>“This is nice,” Steve says. </p><p> </p><p>“I’m nice,” Bucky answers. </p><p> </p><p>“Go to sleep,” says Steve, the sheets rustling between them as Steve shifts his weight more comfortably. </p><p> </p><p>Bucky has always been too weak to resist him. He tumbles headfirst into it, surrounded on all sides by the safest thing there’s ever been, and sleeps. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hi!!!! this isnt my best work but i wanted to write it and my brain wouldnt let me stop until i did so here we are. i think this is my second post today but like whatever lmao</p><p>i hope you're all doing okay in quarantine. stay safe and healthy; check on your friends and family. &lt;3 big love from me to you!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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